‘Magic cheese’ scam woman jailed for 3 years

PARIS: A French court on Tuesday jailed a woman for three years for conning thousands of Chileans into buying a kit to make “magic cheese” they could sell back to French cosmetics companies for use in luxury beauty products.
Gilberte Van Erpe, 74, also received an additional three-year suspended sentence for her vast scam in which she told victims the product they could make at home was a prized ingredient used in creams favoured by celebrities such as Michael Jackson.
But the goop was worthless and the scam became one of the biggest pyramid schemes ever seen in South America.
The “case of the magic cheese”, as it is known in France, began in 2005 when the businesswoman dubbed “Madame Gil” held conferences around Chile urging people to become home producers of the fermented product.
Her company, Fermex Chile, had some 20 branches around Chile.
For 369 euros ($413) investors could buy a kit containing filters and a special powder which when mixed with milk and fermented, produced a small cheese pat they were told was highly sought after by the cosmetics industry.
Fermex promised that companies like French cosmetics giant L’Oreal would snap up the cheese for use in whitening creams and other products.
That is, after they were sold to a company in Congo-Brazzaville which would sell them on to France. Victims were told they could double their initial investment in four months.
To entice the first victims, the kits were given away for free, and people were paid for their first batches of exported “magic cheese”, convincing them to reinvest their earnings.